This book is designed for first- and second-year university students (and their instructors) in earth science, environmental science, and physical geography degree programmes worldwide. The summaries at the end of each section constitute essential reading for policy makers and planners. It provides a simple but masterly account, with a minimum of equations, of how the Earth’s climate system works, of the physical processes that have given rise t ...
What do we mean by the tropics? The weather and the climates it produces across the tropical zone are significantly different from those experienced by the people living in higher latitudes, so forecasters across Europe and much of North America are unfamiliar with its effects. In this book, Jim Galvin demystifies the topic in this zone that is increasingly of interest to those studying weather and climate. This book was written for weather fore ...
Mathematical models have become a crucial way for the Earth scientist to understand and predict how our planet functions and evolves through time and space. The finite element method (FEM) is a remarkably flexible and powerful tool with enormous potential in the Earth Sciences. This pragmatic guide explores how a variety of different Earth science problems can be translated and solved with FEM, assuming only basic programming experience. This bo ...
Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary field that asks profound scientific questions. How did life originate on the Earth? How has life persisted on the Earth for over three billion years? Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? What is the future of life on Earth? Astrobiology: Understanding Life in the Universe is an introductory text which explores the structure of living things, the formation of the elements for life in the Universe, the biol ...
Seismic inversion aims to reconstruct a quantitative model of the Earth subsurface, by solving an inverse problem based on seismic measurements. There are at least three fundamental issues to be solved simultaneously: non-linearity, non-uniqueness, and instability. This book covers the basic theory and techniques used in seismic inversion, corresponding to these three issues, emphasising the physical interpretation of theoretical concepts and pr ...
The only book that offers a comprehensive and fully up-to-date coverage of hydroacoustic ocean exploration, this work deals with the diagnostics of non-uniformities in a water medium using the hydroacoustic parametric antenna. The non-uniformities of the water medium in the study are of geometrically regular shape, i.e., the shape of a sphere, a cylinder, and a spheroid. An account is given of theoretical and experimental studies of wave process ...
Hydrometeorology presents an introduction to relevant topics in the interdisciplinary fields of hydrology and meteorology. This book is one of the few books aiming to provide a balance between aspects of meteorological and hydrological processes. The transfer of energy and water between the land surface and lower atmosphere within the hydrological cycle is addressed followed by a description of the nature of precipitation, and how it is formed. ...
This book describes the fundamental scientific principles underlying high quality instrumentation used for environmental measurements. It discusses a wide range of in situ sensors employed in practical environmental monitoring and, in particular, those used in surface based measurement systems. It also considers the use of weather balloons to provide a wealth of upper atmosphere data. To illustrate the technologies in use it includes many exampl ...
The Alps, with their outstanding outcrop conditions, represent a superb natural laboratory for many geological processes, and have played a crucial role in the history of geology. This book gives an up-to-date and holistic overview of the key aspects of Alpine geology. After a brief presentation of the plate tectonic framework, the rock suites are discussed, starting with the pre-Triassic crystalline basement, followed by Paleozoic, Mesozoic and ...
